Confessions of a Point Man 2: Redemption
by AngeloftheMorning1978
Summary: Fan request: a sequel to 'Confessions of a Point Man'
1. Chapter 1

**Confessions of a Point Man: Redemption**

_~ 'I doubt I'll get used to the weather here in Washington. _

_Our nation's capital was built over a swamp and it's too hot and too muggy. _

_Everyone else seems to not even notice. _

_I don't remember it being this hot the last time I lived here.'_

~ Arthur looked up from his small notebook when his partner joined him at the security station.

Hank Wilson was unfit for any kind of security work. He was overweight, stupid and had seen one too many action movies. He thought of himself as a hard core special forces instead of a paunchy rent-a-cop.

"Sorry about that, man." Wilson said as he slid into the seat next to Arthur.  
"Maybe you need to see a doctor. I don't think a healthy man is supposed to piss that much in just eight hours." Arthur said bitterly.

"I drank about 60 ounces of soda today." Wilson said.

"Why can't you just drink water?" Arthur asked.

Wilson pulled a face and shook his head. Arthur rolled his eyes. He hated the way Wilson ate. The man didn't even eat real food. He wolfed down fried foods and sugary drinks. Every lunch hour he made a run for his favorite fast food joint and came back reeking of salt and his skin greasier than ever. It was a miracle he was even alive.

"Boy, I never get tired of looking at that cute ass." Wilson said leaning over the monitor closet to Arthur.

The Point Man straitened his body to hid the video screen of Miss Ariadne Richards from Wilson.

"Classy as hell shit to." Wilson said lustfully.

"Why don't you monitor the Harper wing?" Arthur said coldly. "That's the one with the international artwork in display. You know, the art that's getting all the threats about displaying other countries national treasures in an American museum.  
"Oh who cares about them? All they are is a bunch of sculptures of queers with tiny dicks and fat women lounging around." Philips said. "Hey, what do you think about Miss Richards? You know she was a senator's daughter. Her daddy stole a bunch of money from people."

"Allegedly." Arthur corrected. "Nothing was ever proven."

"Now that pretty thing is restoring paintings at a national museum. Think some favors were called in for her?" Phillips laughed.

Arthur watched as his partner in the security booth broke open a chocolate pudding cup and stated eating it.

"I wonder if she's got a boyfriend. I mean, we see her on these security cameras all day and I always see her leave alone." Phillips went on.

"That's not our business." Arthur told him

"I'll bet she's a super freak in bed. Bet, she likes it all kind of dirty-"

"Stop talking." Arthur said.

His voice had taken on a razors edge to it.

"What? I'm just saying." Phillips laughed. "Why are you so defensive? You sweet on her or something?"  
"No, just professional." Arthur said. "She's an employee here at the museum and we are here to guard priceless works of American culture. Miss Richards is only our concern if she is a security threat."

"Whatever. Gotta go to the john again." Wilson said and threw his down empty pudding cup in the trash and hefted himself out of the chair.

Arthur waited until he left, counted to ten, and turned beck to watch Ariadne in the main work room. She was working on a painting from the post modern era. A creepy looking painting of a man's distorted face. Arthur liked it, but he knew Ariadne didn't. The Point Man was glad the security cameras were in color. Ariadne looked radiant in in her grey work smock. Even with a dull color, he always thought she looked nice.

He could see why Wilson thought she was classy. Even though she held a lower position with the restoration team, she still dressed better than the rest of them. Always simple and always classic. She looked better than the curator most days. But that was her style, that was how she was raised.

He would rather have this detail alone than work with Wilson. It was the only part of the job that he hated.

~ "Very nice work, Miss Richards." Doctor Debra Godfrey said over Ariadne's shoulder. "But I feel you could be working faster. It shouldn't take you this long to finish."

"Well, there was more dust and debs from the fire. It takes as long as it takes." Ariadne started to explain.

"Im trying to determine how fast you can restore a painting. You know that is where the museum gets a lot of money. Art restoration from private collectors." Doctor Debra Godfrey said.

"I understand, but-"

"It shouldn't take this long." Doctor Debra Godfrey interrupted.  
"Yes, Doctor Godfrey." Ariadne said with a resolved smile.

The curator of the museum walked away. Confidant in her victory of hurting Ariadne's self confidence. Yet again.

Ariadne looked in the corner of the restoration work room and saw the black ball camera. She gave Arthur a weak smile. Try to convince him that everything was okay.

It was almost time to leave for the day anyway and she was glad. She liked the work and the people, but she worried she wasn't doing as well as she hoped. She needed to do well here and Doctor Debra Godfrey knew it.

She carefully hung her smock up in the little changing hall and was careful to comb though her hair, straiten her complimenting statement jewelry, and smooth down her shirt.

Arthur had suggested she might want to dress more casual, but Ariadne couldn't force herself to do that.

Her whole life, she had dressed well. She could hardly go out in public in jeans and a T-shirt. Unless it was a charity thing and that was what was expected.

Everyone had to go though security checks while leaving the museum and the staff was no exception. Ariadne got in line behind the other staff and was waved though the metal detectors and other scanners. All to ensure no one was taking anything away from the museum.  
"Miss Richards." Arthur said cooly when she walked past him.

She glanced and gave him a slight nod as she walked to her car. She was glad his job here didn't require him to wear a ridiculous security guard uniform. He got to dress in a suit, like he liked, and wander the halls all day. But he had earned his position as head of security. In truth, he could do much better than the museum.

She knew it would be a long time before he would be free from his work. He had to oversee the change of shift, so she started the engine to her car and pulled out of the parking lot. Glad to be going home.

~ Ariadne had bought a charming townhouse last year after her father died.

With all the investigations, hearings and IRS coming after him, she was glad she had her own money.

Still, she wasn't immune to the aftermath of her father's legacy.

It was only a matter of time before defrauded investors went after her. She had to hire a lawyer which didn't come cheap. She also had the unpleasant aftermath of killing her stalker, Mr. Eames, to deal with. Another drama that was played out in the press and which made her life hell.

She had managed to pay her legal fees and to sell her family's home and most their assets, but it left little security for her afterwards. She made sure her sister was provided for, not an easy thing to do with where she was living and how expensive it was.

With what she had left, she was able to buy the town house and start to renovate it. She had intended to remodel it, and sell it, but the work was coming along slowly and there was still too much to do. She still had to finish the downstairs bathroom, the kitchen and the basement.

Everything else was lipstick and rouge. She hoped.

She was glad to be home though. There was no place like it.

When she entered the front door, her security alarm beeped at her and she quickly punched in Arthur's birthday. A code no one would guess and it went green and stopped beeping.

She wasn't sue how helpful the alarm would be if someone really meant to do her harm, but it was nice to have.

'_False sense of security._' she thought to herself.

She looked around her living room and sighed. It was small, decorated with the antique furniture she had been able to save from the auction, and admittedly, looked a little odd in her humble living room.

But she couldn't bare to part with the Georgiana wash table and mirror in the foyer. The Dresden curio cabinet full of her mother's figurine collection. Although, it did look a little mismatched next to the sofa she bought online and the Ikea bookshelves Arthur had heroically installed for her one weekend.

Bookshelves which were now overflowing with art and chemistry text books she was using for her doctorate course work. She kicked off her shoes, tucked them safely in the hall closet, and went into the dinning room. It wasn't really a dinning room just now. She had taken it over as a command base for her school work. It had her laptop, her five notebooks full of notes and made her depressed a the sight of it.

Her doctoral thesis wasn't going well. She had written about a popular subject. The recovery of stolen art from the Nazis during world war 2. But, when that awful movie came out, she feared her subject matter might be laughable. She didn't want to look stupid in front of the board, which is exactly what she would look like if she presented a thesis that had movie footnotes. She would never forgive George Clooney.

The kitchen wasn't a bad as she had thought. At least it was clean. Sure, the cabinets were painted a hideous 1976 retro green and it was too big a job to do it herself, but at least when it was repainted, had new wallpaper and new floors, appliances and new windows, it would be amazing.

She knew the bicentennial was the last time this kitchen was redone because of the bicentennial wallpaper. A thing Ariadne had never dreamed even existed.

She grabbed a fruit cup from the fridge and let the stinging sweetness of grapefruit calm her.

_'__Who would actually buy bicentennial wallpaper for their home?_' she thought. It was complete with pictures of wooden forks and spoons to. Yuck.

Ariadne quickly pictured a family living here in the 70's. Horrible clothes, hair and make-up. Acrylic everything.

_'__Darling, you know what we should get? Make the kitchen really classy? Some green, yellow and brown wallpaper with a bicentennial theme to it. You know, just in case president Ford comes to visit.'_

_'__Sounds __groovy__. It will go great with the formica furniture I just bought. That will never go out of style._'

Ariadne rolled her eyes. She hated this wallpaper.

She was jerked out of her time warp by a sudden noise in the living room. The security alarm hadn't gone off. The hardwood floors creaked menacingly and she could hear someone was in her house.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

~ The alarm for the door didn't go off and Ariadne felt her heart speed up. Someone was in the house and the alarm hadn't sounded. She couldn't seem to will her feet to move. For the past few months it had been like this. Her anxiety so consuming, she often found herself frozen in fear.

She was easy prey, standing there, waiting for her own doom.

The old wooden floorboard cracked slightly as the intruder came into the kitchen.

"I though we agreed to turn the alarm back on once you're inside." Arthur said.

There was a touch of annoyance in his voice.

"I was afraid I'd set off the motion detectors again." Ariadne said. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"What's wrong?" Arthur asked.  
"I just wasn't expecting you home so early." she told him.

"Right after you left, I made an excuse to leave." he explained.

"They're going to catch on to us if you keep doing that." she smiled. Secretly, she was glad he took the rest of the day off. They both worked too many hours.

"How many times do we have the evening free together?" Arthur asked. "Between our crazy work schedules and you going back to school."

She felt a pang of guilt and looked at her bare feet.  
"Do you still not feel safe with the alarm? Because we can get a dog if you want. I have a buddy who breeds the attack dogs they use at the white house. German shepherds. Very loyal and gentle." Arthur said. He was raiding the fridge for his traditional after work orange juice.

"Must be why Hitler liked them." Ariadne smiled.

Arthur loosened his neck tie. A nicer tie than he normally wore, thanks to her picking out his clothes.  
"That's racial profiling, Miss Richards." Arthur teased. "Or maybe a pit bull their supposed to be the nanny dogs."

"We barely have enough time to see each other, Arthur. When would we have time to take care of a dog?" she asked. "The walks everyday after work. Not to mention the furniture would be ruined."

"We could hire a dog walker."

"And defeat the whole purpose of a secure home by giving a stranger the keys to the door and alarm code." she refuted.

"Alright, it's just a suggestion." Arthur said.

She sensed disappointment in his voice and took a deep breath.  
"I feel perfectly safe in this house." she lied. "I'll set the alarm when I come home. Promise."

"The alarms will work. They're very loud. No one wants to stay in a house when there are alarms going off." Arthur told her. He had moved to stand beside her and she could smell the last traces of his cologne on his clothes.

It was a scent she had picked out for him and given him for his birthday last month. He kissed her on the forehead.

"I told you I wasn't going to let anything happen to you. Remember?"  
She smiled.  
"Yes, you did." she agreed sadly. "It's just, it's a lot to put behind me. I _killed_ a man, Arthur."

"I know. But he was going to kill you. He almost killed me." he agreed.  
"You took a job that was beneath you just to be here. You gave up your career to babysit me all day. What's worse, we can't even tell anyone we're a couple." she added sadly.  
"First of all, I didn't give up anything." Arthur said curtly. "I like the art museum. I get to look at a pretty brunette on the camera's all day and no one is shooting at me."

Ariadne smiled.

"I was told my work isn't progressing fast enough. The curator of the restoration projects said I should be done by now." she said sadly.

"It's art. You cant rush it. She either wants it done fast, or she wants it done right." Arthur said.

"This is America. She wants it done now. _Right now_." Ariadne sighed. "What if I'm not good enough to move up at the museum?"

It was a fear she had been experiencing for a few months now.  
"I mean, my supervisors are cold and catty to me. I don't have any real friends there. Arthur, I have every last dime invested in this town home that we're trying to flip. We can barely afford the repairs and if the market takes another dive." she said.  
"It's going to be fine." Arthur said. "If we have to live in this house forever we will."

"We cant afford to live in this house forever." Ariadne sighed. "The taxes in the neighborhood alone are outrageous."

"Because of the private school a block away. We knew that when you bought it. It's one of the reasons why it's such a good investment." Arthur told her calmly.

"Do you know the last estimate I got to make a finished basement? Over fifty thousand dollars." Ariadne said.

"If we make it into an nice micro apartment, we can ask a lot more for the house. It's worth the extra money." Arthur said. "Our real estate lady even told us that."

"I'm just worried. It's so much work. I keep thinking I'm going to fail. I feel like I'm a failure at everything."

Arthur was quite for a moment.

"I've never really had to worry about money before. It all came from my trust. I've relied on my dad's position to get me where I wanted to be. I mean, even now, I only got this job because my dad's friend pulled some strings. I'm not qualified to work at the museum in anything but a tour guide. I have a masters degree in art history and design. How is that any use in the real world?" she said sadly.

"You're free for the weekend, right?" Arthur asked.

She nodded.  
"Work thinks I'm going to see family. Why don't we spend that time peeling off this hideous wallpaper and repainting. It'll be fun."

"I have to write at least five thousand words on my thesis before next month and all I have are a bunch of notes. I may even have to change topics because of the stupid movie" Ariadne said.

She hated to declare defeat, but she knew she had bitten off more than she could chew with work, school and fixing up an old town house.

"We can make it work." Arthur said gently.

"Why did you decide to stay with me? I'm not exactly paying you to protect me anymore." she asked.

She already knew the answer. She was fond of asking this same question when ever she needed cheering up.

"Didn't I promise I would look after you?" he said in a whisper.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

~ The town house had only three bedrooms and two baths. None of these including what would eventually be done to the basement. The two smaller bedrooms and jack and jill bathroom, would be the last thing on the list to fix.

This was the easiest project to complete. New carpet, paint and new electric outlets for the bedrooms. New toilet, sinks and bathtub for the shared bathroom. As such, Ariadne had stuffed the rest of her antique furniture into the two empty rooms. She reasoned she would save money by not using a storage house. All her antiques were still wrapped in their packing blankets and bubble wrap. The rooms crowded and stuffy from lack of use.

~ "There it is again, running water." Arthur said coming out of the master bathroom.  
"It's an old house. It's always creaked a little." Ariadne said looking through her iPad.

"It's strange, I just finished my shower and I can still hear running water through the rest of the house." he told her. He pressed an ear to the wall. Trying to listen where it was coming from.  
"Maybe we need a new hot water heater." Ariadne sighed. "We'll have to get one of those super eco friendly ones. The kind that heats up water really fast and cost thousands of dollars."

"Maybe. I hope that's all it is." Arthur agreed. "I hope we don't have to replace all the pumping."

"Our contractor said the pipes were alright." she sounded worried again and Arthur was quick to reassure her.

"You're right. It's just an old house. Sound is funny in older homes." he agreed.

She smiled, and he felt contentment at the sight of her in their bed. She looked perfectly coifed, even when they were only going to sleep.  
"Let me show you the wallpaper I had in mind. "It's a little pricy, but it's perfect."

He climbed into bed with her, looked over at her iPad and saw her Pinterest decorating board.

At first, he hoped she was joking. The wallpaper was emerald green with gold embellishments. How was that better than the horrible bicentennial wallpaper they had now?

"See, it's a Moroccan design. Very bold, very elegant. But not too trendy. I think it will work if we only do the main wall in the kitchen with this paper, and make the back splash a mixture of emerald green and gold mini tiles." she said happily.

"Oh." Arthur didn't like it. How to break the news. "I thought white or beige was would be best. I mean to sell it."

"I know, but this is very elegant." Ariadne told him. "We keep the hardwood floors but stain them a darker color. It makes the kitchen and dinning room much more in sync."

"You want to do the dinning room in this wall paper to?" he asked. No, this wasn't going to work. If Truman Capote and his little friends were going to buy this house, maybe. But not a normal family.  
"Oh yes. The dinning room and kitchen are pretty much the same room. If we tear down the cabinets that separate them, it will feel more open. I also think the cabinets should be done in a dark brown. But not black." she said.

He couldn't see her vision. All he saw was hideous wallpaper that would cost a fortune and would look awful. It was the kind of wallpaper a prospective buyer would look at and want to rip out.

"I don't know. What's wrong with painting the whole thing white?" he asked.  
"What?" she laughed.  
"I men white is good. They can paint it anyway they want then."

"White is _cheap_, Arthur. We're re-doing a high end home here. This isn't a rental property for college students." she said.  
"Ariadne," he scrolled though her design board. Everything looked nice, but far too magazine ready and not realistic. "This wallpaper you're talking about might not appeal to everyone. We have to make this for a broader audience."

"Arthur, you're not looking at the big picture. Once they see all this color and how elegant it is, the wife will think of nothing but hosting dinner parties in the dinning room." she argued.  
"Ariadne, the only people who would appreciate this wallpaper are a couple of gay guys and even then they would probably hate it."

She gasped in horror and he knew he had said the wrong thing. Her eyes grew wide in shock that her taste in interior design questioned.

Arthur let out a laugh. He couldn't help it. How rare was it for her that someone didn't blindly love her style?  
"I'm sorry, honey." he said. Still laughing.  
"I can't believe you don't like my wallpaper." she said pitifully.

He couldn't stop laughing at that.  
"It's not funny, Arthur."

"Sure it is. Think about it. In forty years, the new owners of this house will hate it and wonder what you were thinking." he laughed.

He couldn't stop now. The idea that her 'oh so glamorous' wallpaper would be thought of as ugly one day, was too funny.

"In forty years from now, they will look back at this wallpaper and say, 'oh my, she's just like Jackie Kennedy with her interior design'!" Ariadne fumed. "You just have no sense of style."

"You are absolutely right, beautiful." he laughed.

He felt better now. About everything.

"Don't patronize me." she said hotly.  
"We'll go to the home improvement place tomorrow and we can see if they have a less expensive option that looks like that. You might like it more. I think the idea for the floors and cabinets are good." he said. A bubble of laughter still rising up.  
"I really don't like you sometimes." she told him. The remark was more childish than hurtful. Like a little kid pouting because they didn't get their way.  
"I know. But whatever we do for wallpaper, buyers better like. Otherwise, we'll be looking at it for the next forty years." he told her.

"Think we'll be looking at it together?" she asked. A little smile on her lips.

"Of course." he said. "We'll be old and grey and I'll still love you, and still hate that wallpaper."

~ Arthur was barely asleep when his phone rang. He had been dreaming of something that made him worried. Of shadows and running water and breathing. But when his cell phone went off, the dream seemed to fade away like smoke.

"This is Arthur." he said into his phone on the second ring.

He heard Ariadne moan and roll over. Their bedroom was dark and still. He looked at the time, his body awake but his mind still asleep.

'_This had bester be good._' he thought to himself. '_It's two int he morning_.'

"Arthur, this is Lee." came the voice of the night shift security leader.

"What's happened? The alarm went off?" Arthur asked.

"Sir, there was a bomb." Lee said. "The international wing was bombed ten minutes ago. We need you down here right now."


	4. Chapter 4

4.

~ Arthur didn't wake Ariadne when he left. He sent an IM to her iPad because he knew her well enough to know it was always the first thing she checked for the time, emails, Facebook and everything else.

It was much more efficient that leaving a Post-it on the bathroom mirror.

He didn't bother with socks or even a better shirt. He pulled on some jeans and his running shoes and was out the door. Careful to re-set the alarm again before locking the door.

~ A bombing at the museum and he had no clue. This was horrible. This was the kind of thing that would bring homeland security on everyone who worked there, visited there or had a grudge against art in general.

'_It's alright._' he told himself. '_You've made digital copies of all the threats to the museum in the past year and you've stored all security footage in the cloud. If there is anything to find, it'll be there.'_

He was glad he was so anal about procedures. Glad that he made everyone go through the metal detectors and wear their ID tags at all times. He was glad he had taken the initiative to create digital patrons list. It would narrow the field of suspects if the bomber had been to the museum more than once in the past year.

No, everything was fine. Let homeland security come. He was ready.

~ What he wasn't ready for was the blinding lights of the fire trucks and police cars blocking the streets.

The Point Man had to leave his car two blocks away and walk to the museum where he was met by Lee and the other of the night security guard.  
"Was anyone hurt?" he asked.

"No, sir." Lee said quickly.  
"What happened?" Arthur demanded.  
"We had just done the midnight sweep. Tony had left the international wing when there was this blast." Lee explained.  
"Couldn't see for a few seconds and my ears are still ringing." Tony Montoya said.

Arthur nodded at the other security guard who looked shaken but otherwise alright.

"The blast doors?" Arthur asked.

"They went down." Lee nodded. "I made sure the chemical fire suppression was working before we evacuated the building."

"Good." Arthur said.

"Firefighters are in the international wing right now, securing everything."

Arthur was looking at the outside of the wing that had been bombed. There was no smoke, no signs of damage.  
"How bad do you think it was?" he asked Lee.

"Honestly, sir?" Lee said with raised eyebrows. "I was in Iraq and it sounded like a flash bang to me."

Arthur nodded. A flash bang grande was a favorite weapon in modern warfare. It surprised the enemy by being very loud and very bright. It's purpose was to stun the opposition enough to gain the upper hand, escape or disperse a crowd. It was useful because it was effective, but not deadly.

"So it wasn't a real bomb?" Arthur asked.

He was still looking at the building. No fire, no smoke.  
"Sir, I wanted to follow procedure. I know it's what you would do." Lee said worriedly.

"You did the right thing." Arthur muttered. "No, you did the right thing."

He nodded but a nagging fear was eating at him.

"There's the chief." Tony nodded at a beefy man coming towards them.  
"You head of security?" the chief said gruffly. He reminded Arthur of a walrus turned human, in build. But his expression was not be trifled with.  
"Was it a bomb?" Arthur asked as more police cars were coming onto the scene. This was turning into a nightmare.

"No, sir and you'll be happy to know that there's no damage aside from minor smoke. It appears non lethal attack devices were employed to trip the blast doors and activate the fire suppression system." the chief said.  
"Thank God for that." Arthur muttered. "Was the culprit inside? I mean if it was a flash bang, it would have had to be done by someone close by."

The chief looked angry and waved at one of the firefighters.

"You seen one of these before?" the chief asked. His tone was as if Arthur had knowingly set the explosion.

The other firefighter jogged up in full gear next to the chief and held out at toy truck. It was burnt, broken and it's rubber tires melted.

"What is that?" Arthur asked.

"Homeland security's problem now." Chief grumbled. "But I know a delayed device when I see one. These tech kids attach a flash bang, smoke grenade, or even tear gas onto one of these little fuckers and drive it out into a crowd of people. The can remote detonate it with something as simple as magnates from a mile away."

"Yeah, using a disposable cell phone. There was a rash of these in New York. Some people were hurt when they got too close." the younger fire fighter with the broken toy truck said.  
"I have extensive security footage and even a digital patron tracker. If someone left that in the museum, we'll find them quickly." Arthur said.

"You better talk to the feds." the chief said and nodded behind Arthur.

The Point Man turned and saw men in suits coming to him.

This was going to be a long night.

~ "You're night watchmen never saw the toy truck before now?" the FBI man asked the Point Man.

"If they say they didn't. I just got here so I can't be sure what they saw." Arthur shrugged.

"It's funny that a toy truck was able to guide itself to the international wing without anyone seeing it." the FBI man said.  
"Not funny, Agent." the Point Man said angrily. "Nothing about this is funny."

"When I said funny, I meant strange." the FBI man said.

"It's strange, but achievable." Arthur said. "There are only two security guards during the night. The cameras are on all the wings and motion detectors are on all floors. It's very possible a savvy tech could drive a toy car with a camera mounted to it down the halls and not set off the motion sensors or be caught by the cameras."

The FBI man shook his head.  
"You only have two men watching priceless art work at night?" he asked.

"It was all I was budgeted for." Arthur said. "Although after tonight, I'm sure that will change."

"I'm sure a lot will change about your job after tonight." the FBI man said.  
The Point Man felt incensed.

"Agent, the cameras and the motion detectors did their job. The blast doors and the fire suppression did their job. My men, did their job. Now it's time to do your job and find the punk who did this." the Point Man said.  
"How did a toy car even get into the museum?" the FBI man said casually.

"Sorry?"

"I mean, how did a toy car get into a national museum? I saw the metal detectors, don't you monitor things like that? Did a kid come in with his toy car and leave it? Was it in the lost and found?" the FBI man asked.

Arthur was ready for this. Mind games.

"Agent, I'm sure if you check the security cameras, they will show where that toy car came from. I left the museum at five o'clock." the Point Man said.  
"What did you do after that?"

"I went home."

"Can anyone confirm that story?"

"It's not a _story_, it's what happened. I live a very boring life. My girlfriend can confirm that I was at home from five twenty till Lee called me." the Point Man said.  
"What's your girlfriend's name? She'll need to come down here and give a statement." the FBI man said scribbling down notes.

Arthur took a deep breath.

"Ariadne Richards." he said stiffly.

The FBI man scowled and looked over a printed stack of papers.

"She's an employee here?" he asked.

"Yes." Arthur said cooly.  
"You live together? You and your girlfriend?" the FBI man asked.

Arthur sighed. So much for discretion.

"Yes. For over a year now." he said.

"Is this your girlfriend's phone number?" the FBI man said and pointed out the phone number next to Ariadne's name and address.  
"Yes. It's her cell. Call her." Arthur said. He was feeling embarrassed by the word 'girlfriend'. It was a word kids used and it made him feel like his relationship with Ariadne wasn't serious. Arthur wasn't the type to have a girlfriend.

"We have tried to call Miss Richards all night. " the FBI man said.

"Is her phone off?" Arthur asked. Ariadne knew better than to keep her phone off. Number one rule in the house, keep your phone on and with you at all times.

"No, there is just no answer. Maybe she left it in another room."

"No, she keeps her phone by her night stand it was there when I left." Arthur said. "I need to go and check on her."

"We're sending a unit to pick her up now." the FBI man said.

"Sir, I need to-" Arthur started to argue but his own cell phone buzzed angrily in his pocket.

With relief, he pulled his phone out. He was sure it was Ariadne calling him. She would be angry some cop was at the house wanting to take her to the museum and why didn't he wake her up, and how could he hate the wallpaper?  
"Ariadne?" Arthur asked into his phone without checking the caller ID.

**Silence…**

Silence so heavy and wrong Arthur crouched still for fear of it hurting him.

"Ariadne?" he asked again.

"She's gone, secret service." a deep, computer modulated voice said. "If you want the senator's daughter back in one piece, you won't tell the FBI about this phone call. You won't say a word. I've got the senator's daughter safe for now. She's very cozy. Play it cool, secret service, and she'll be alright. Tell the FBI agent sitting across from you, and her body won't be fit for an open burial. I'll be in touch when the smoke clears."

The voice clicked off and was gone. Arthur's heart was beating so fast there was a rushing sound in his years.

"Who was that?" the FBI man was asking. Arthur couldn't hear a thing.

The bombing, the bombing that wasn't a bombing at all but a distraction to leave the house. To abandon Ariadne in the house so she could be taken without his interfering.

"Sir, who was that on the phone?" the FBI man demanded.


	5. Chapter 5

5.

~ "Telemarketer." Arthur said at last. "Automatic call machine. Hate those things."

"Was it a charity call? That's how they get around the do not call lists." the FBI agent asked sympathetically.

"I didn't really listen." Arthur said. He looked over his phone, but the number that had just called him said it was blocked. No return number, no way to call whoever it was back.

"So, about your girlfriend." the FBI agent said.  
"I'm not sure why she's not picking up her phone. Maybe she's on her way here." Arthur cleared his throat.

"You're living with a fellow government employee? Romantically?" the agent asked.  
"Yes, but we've been discrete about it. Until now that it. We leave and come to work in separate cars. We don't talk to each other during the day. We didn't want people here to know." the Point Man explained.

He was trying to keep his voice casual. His breathing calm. He was trying to put on a mask, while he felt a horrible rage burning inside him.

She was gone. If the strange caller was to be believed, she was taken from their home and she would be killed if he showed a second of fear to this FBI agent.

"You should have filled out the declaration forms for a relationship." the agent said.

"She or I would have been transferred if we did that." Arthur reasoned.

His body was on edge and he wanted to get away from the agent.

"So, you've been lying to people since you started woking here. Is that right?" the agent asked.

The Point Man took a moment to size up the agent interviewing him.

FBI only took collage graduates. Although not always in law enforcement these days. The agency liked computer and accounting wizards. They recruited chemists and language experts. Men and women who were willing to devote their lives to the cause.

This agent was talking to the head of security, so that had to mean he wasn't fresh from the academy. He was average everything. Average hight. Average build. Even his haircut was average. This was probably intentional.

If the Point Man was asked to describe this agent in looks, he would fail. There was no discernible traits to him that would set him apart of the masses. He didn't resemble anyone famous and look perfectly ordinary. However, his suit, posture and the way he spoke said he may have been in law enforcement his entire adult life.

He had the quite '_you don't know what I know_' attitude that seasoned detectives have.

Arthur knew it was best not to share too much information with this agent. He wasn't a dumb as he was pretending to be.

As if the fates that be heard his hearts desire, the ordinary looking agent's phone went off. What followed was a one sided conversation about video security cameras and pass codes.

Arthur calmly and coldly gave them all the pass codes to the cameras. He was helpful and didn't show anything but a face of stone.

"Alright. There isn't anything else we can do tonight, sir." the agent said. "No damage was done to the museum, that's the best part of this. "If anyone from the press calls, your official position is that it was a malfunction in the fire suppressions system. Fire department and police responded accordingly. You will keep to that story, understand?" the agent said.

"Absolutely. I'll tell my men." Arthur agreed.

"They're already being told that." the agent said. "Last thing we need is a panic that there is a homegrown terror cell in our nation's capital. Now, best case scenario, it's just some kid who saw one too many movies, and who gets his jollies scaring people with these little toys. In order for us to catch the unsub, we will need work without his knowing anything. We can't give him anymore attention."

"That will be you best method of capture." Arthur agreed. "The video surveillance and the toy car won't hurt either."

The FBI man eyed the Point Man suspiciously.  
"You're girlfriend still hasn't checked in." he said. "There isn't an answer at the door when the officer went to your place."  
"I hope she isn't with some other guy." Arthur said with a fake smile.

"She'll need to report to us as soon as possible. We can't clear her as a suspect until she's found and debriefed." the agent said.  
"She's not a suspect." Arthur said dryly.

"All employees are suspects until we say otherwise." the agent said. "No out of town trips for a while, alright?"

"I'm just going to go home to my girl." Arthur said as casually as he could manage.

"We'll be in contact. Try to rest and report to my office with your girlfriend before noon." the agent handed the Point Man his card.  
"Agent Thomas Lake. You're in the J. Edger Hoover building." Arthur said. "Impressive."

"Not really." agent Lake laughed.  
Arthur quickly pocketed agent Lake's card and shook his hand.  
"We'll be there. No worries." he Point Man said.

~ Arthur couldn't leave the museum fast enough. The fire department was already gone and a small contingent of specialized crime scene personal were going though the museum now to look for more evidence.

There was a light crowd of people watching the commotion, but all they saw was two police cars with no lights on, and two black vans with a carpet cleaning logo on them. Arthur had spent enough time in this world to know covert crime scene units when he saw them. He knew that those vans were really federal agents examining the museum and not wanting the fact that the building had been bombed on the news.

No, the story of malfunctioning fire alarms would fit nicely.

_'__No worries folks. Just a fire alarm and we can't be too careful. And while you're all safe in you're homes, Ariadne is out there at the hands of a maniac._' he thought.

~ The Point Man raced home as fast as he could. It was almost dawn and traffic was picking up. The sun was just starting to break apart the darkness, making the neighborhood look slightly dream like when he parked in front of the town house.

The front door was closed and when he tried to open it, he was surprised to find it locked.

It seemed to take forever to unlock the door. It had a stupid, vintage door knob, original to the house, that didn't want to turn right.

Finally, he opened the door to sounds of the alarm beeping.

'_He reset the alarm?_' Arthur thought.

With one eye on the foyer, and one eye pressing the security code, he reset the alarm. He couldn't have the police here.

The alarm beeped twice to let him know it was reset and the motion detectors were down. The key pad turning from red to green meaning everything was secure again.

On silent, careful feet, the Point Man maneuvered around the living room. The house was still. It felt obsessively silent and almost expectant. As if he had been gone for years and not a few hours.

The Point Man eyed the stairs while maneuvering around the living room. No noise came from the second floor. Quickly and quietly, he found one of the handguns he kept hidden in the bookcase. Ariadne didn't know it was there and he kept her ignorant of his stash of weapons.

Now he wondered if she knew where all the weapons were kept if she might…

'_Stay focused_.' he told himself. '_Secure the first floor. Secure the second floor._'

Silently, he placed a chair under the basement doorknob. He would secure the basement last this way.

Living room, dinning room, ugly green kitchen. All were empty and untouched. They looked the same as they did last night. They had left the dishes in the sink from dinner.

The stairs creaked slightly as he carefully made his way to their bedroom. He didn't bother with the smaller bedrooms yet. Those rooms were so full of furniture, it was hard to maneuver through them.

Their bedroom.

This was obviously where she was taken. The room was ripe with evidence this was where the struggle happened. The mattress was almost pulled entirely off the bed. Her night table was toppled over. Her iPad on the floor next to her phone.

Arthur was breathing hard now.

'_This can't be real. She can't be gone._' he thought to himself.

He pointed the barrel of his gun towards the bathroom, but knew it was empty. No one was lurking in the shower and everything there looked clean and normal.

He looked over the bedroom again. More signs of a struggle.

His eyes caught a bare space on the wall by the bed. It normally was home to a framed pairing an old school friend of hers had done. Now the artwork was on the floor. An indentation was there on the wall where it had once hung.

He squinted at the mark and saw to his horror what it was.

Blood and dark hair still clunk to the cracked plaster. Her attacker had smashed the back of her head into the wall during the fight. It might have been an attack brutal enough to knock her out. Maybe even kill her.

Arthur pressed his hand to the wall and wondered how much force would be needed to crate damage like that. Could Ariadne even survive an attack to the head?

Like a mad man he searched the closet, and guest rooms. Everything looked normal and nothing out of place. The basement yielded no other clues and looked the same as it always had.

'_He took her._' Arthur thought wildly. '_He took her, and somehow reset the alarm to the house. How did he manage that? How did he even get inside the house?' _


	6. Chapter 6

6.

~ In the living room, alone, Arthur waited.

He kept his mind totally blank and free to wonder about things he hadn't thought of in years.

He thought about learning how to ride a bike when he was little. How his father hadn't been around for that, but his grandfather had told him he must have ridden a mile or more.

It had taken a long time before Arthur realized the old man must have lied to him as a means of encouragement.

He thought about good memories mostly. The way the summer sun made the grass feel on bare feet. He thought about simple pleasures and never once let his mind go to that dark place where he knew fear would hold him, and make him a victim.

If he let himself worry after Ariadne just now, he wouldn't be able to help her. He would stay in a mind set of anger and hostility and would think and act irrationally.

The object was to stay calm and relaxed. He wouldn't achieve his goals if he was already morning her.

His cell phone went off in his hand and he saw the unknown caller.

'_Let it ring two more times._' he told himself.

He took a deep breath and slowly let it out.

The phone rang again.

'_You will answer it when you're ready. Not before. You are in control. Not him._' he thought.

The phone rang again and the Point Man answered. His voice cold and detached.

"Hello."

"Was beginning to think you were avoiding my call." came a robot like voice. The voice modulator once again masking the identity of the kidnapper.

"We spoke before." Arthur said by means of an answer.

"Yes." the robot voice said.

"Ariadne is dead." Arthur said bluntly. His head hurt from saying those awful words, but he had to get the kidnapper to reveal himself. Show some kind of weakness.  
"Not yet." the robot said.

"I saw the struggle. You killed her and now you're trying to buy yourself time." Arthur said. He felt divorced from emotion and almost like a robot himself.

"She's alive."

"I don't believe you."

"I can mail you a thumb if you like. It will be full of her fresh blood if that will convince you."

Arthur felt his blood grow ice cold.

He could do it. The kidnapper could do just that. The kidnapper had more practice at being a machine and not a man. He was experienced at evil.

"Why are you doing this?" Arthur said.  
"I see you're easily beaten, secret service." the robot voice said. There was a tint of humor in it's voice. "Don't worry, there is no need to be alarmed for the senator's daughter just yet."

"The senator's daughter." Arthur repeated. "Is the senator the reason you're doing this? Some kind of revenge? The senator's dead. You can't hurt a dead man."

"No, but I can hurt you, secret service." the robot voice said.

"If you want to hurt me…" Arthur stood up and looked out the windows. The street outside was empty. Everyone was at work or school this morning. "Why don't you just come over? We can have it out right now like men. It's not very sporting to bring a girl into it. Come over and lets settle this."

"I never agreed to play fair. Why would I start now?" the menacing voice laughed.  
"What is it you want?" Arthur demanded. "Money?"

The robot voice laughed.

"You have nothing I want, secret service." it said.  
"Then why do this?"

"I grow tired of these games. I'll be in touch. Make sure agent Lake doesn't catch wise to you. Wouldn't want the game to end too soon."

"You know agent Lake?" Arthur asked.

He was trying to buy time. Trying to get the man to keep talking, but there was a click, and he was gone.

Arthur hugged his phone to his ear for a long time. He should have asked for proof of life. Should have asked to talk to Ariadne. He still had no reason to believe she was still alive.

The Point Man sat back down.

'_He's evil. He's in control. He might have done this before. He's not rash or skittish. He's calm. He said it was a game. He called me secret service. He must have known that I used to work for the secret service. Not everyone knows that. Not the people at work at least. That information is always classified, but if he can hack a bomb into a museum, he can find my file. Agent Lake. He knows agent Lake's name.'_

Arthur felt the clouds in his head part.

"He was there." the Point Man muttered.

'_The kidnapper was at the museum. Sometime after he took Ariadne he must have seen me talking to Agent Lake._' he thought. '_It's a lot to pull off in a short amount of time. Take a girl, drive up to a crime scene with her… where would she have been?_'

He didn't like the idea of Ariadne being stuffed into a trunk but that was the only logical place the kidnapper would have had to put her.

'_Wait._' the Point Man stopped. '_He had an accomplice. It's too risky to break into a house, take a girl, re-set the alarm, and then drive the scene of another crime where there are police and FBI…' _

"Agent Lake." Arthur said aloud. The solution was staring him in the face. It was agent Lake all along.

~ The Point Man left the house. He didn't care about locking the front door this time. There was nothing left for anyone to take.

His car was a nondescript Honda, a favorite for government employees who wanted to blend in. No one ever noticed his car and that was how he liked it.

The hospital was nearby and thankfully, no one was at the reception desk. The Point Man thought it was interesting that the main lobby had a bank of computers for people to go online with. He had made a mental note of it, even mentioning to Ariadne once.

'_Why bother?_' she had laughed. '_Everyone has a smart phone these days. It must have been months since I used a real computer._'

'_It's unusual._' he had said. '_I guess it's for older people who don't have a cell phone._'

'_I guess_.' she shrugged. '_Facebook updates are very important. Even when you're in the hospital._'

Arthur settled himself in front of the painfully obvious public computer, did a quick check on a local movie theater and created a fake email account.

I made him slightly nostalgic to create an email account. He hadn't done this in at least ten years.

He pulled out agent Lance's card and found the government email.

**Subject: Museum**

Arthur had to choose his words carefully.

**'****I know, that you know. Come to the Broken Horse theater. Noon showing of "Time Cop". Come alone.' **

The Point Man sent the email and checked the time.

Only an hour for Agent Lake to respond. Only an hour for Arthur to get to the theater.

The Point Man hoped Lake would come. Hoped that once a Arthur's 22 glock was pressed deep into agent Lake's spine in a dark theater, the bastard would tell him where Ariadne was.


	7. Chapter 7

7.

~ Arthur waited for Lake to arrive.

He didn't bother to stick around the hospital to see if his email was responded to or not. He hurried to the dollar theater in the bad part of town, to wait for the FBI agent.

The Broken Horse movie theater was a washed out place that could, in the right hands, be restored to the magnificent glory of it's heyday. But now, it showed forgotten movies no one wanted to see at a dollar a ticket. It was visited mostly by the homeless looking for the joy of being indoors for a few hours with climate control.

The Point Man spotted the FBI man, his clothing disheveled, hurriedly leave his government issued car and walk quickly to the theater, buy a ticket and rush inside.

Arthur scanned the parking lot. His careful eyes checking rooftops and even the men sitting on bus benches. None of them looked like agents waiting for him.

No, Lake had come alone.

The Point Man secured a baseball cap over his face and walked with his head down to the theater.

~ No one bothered him as soon as he was inside. The cold blast of air-conditioning was a welcomed relief from the outside. Lake wasn't in the lobby, he must already be inside the theater.

Thankfully, Arthur had chosen a movie with a lot of sound effects and explosions. It was easy to come inside, and find Lake with all the distractions on screen.

Lake was perched at the top of the row of seating and noticed the Point Man approach only at the last moment.

The agent didn't say a word, just looked strait ahead at the boring, horrible movie as Arthur took a seat next to him.

"You have something new about the bomb? Or do you want to confess?" Lake said casually.

"This has nothing to do with the bomb and you know it." Arthur told him curtly.

Lake chuckled.

"Look, I'm not into guys alright? That's my brother. So if you asked me down here to this theater to try and seduce me-"

Lake stopped talking when the Point Man pressed the barrel of his handgun into the agent's side.

"Put your hands on the seat in front of you." Arthur told him in a whisper.

The agent complied and looked worried.

The Point Man made quick work of taking the agents gun away from him and ran a hand over his chest to see if her was wearing a wire.

"Sure you're not hear for romance?" Lake teased.

"Where is she?" Arthur asked.

"Who?"

"My girlfriend." Arthur almost shouted but managed to keep his voice low at the last second. "Ariadne Richards. Where is she? You called me, threatened to cut her fucking finger off. You got my attention, asshole. Now I'm done playing games with you. Tell me where she is and I won't kill you right here."

Lake was quite for a long time.

"Tell me!" Arthur hissed.

He could't stand this anymore. He hated being at the mercy of this puppet master.

"I should warn you that what you're doing right now is felony. I'm a federal agent." Lake said.  
"A federal agent who knew I used to be secret service. A federal agent who knows how to override an alarm to my house, kidnap my girlfriend and plant a bomb in a museum. All to distract people. Yeah asshole, I know what you are." Arthur spat.

He was ready to pull the trigger. He wanted to shoot this prick in the belly and have him die a slow and painful death.

Lake seemed to have sensed the Point Man's frustration.

"Calm down." the agent said. "You're girlfriend is missing?"

"You know she's missing. You took her." Arthur hissed.

"No, I didn't."

"Fuck you."

"I didn't. Take . Your. Girlfriend." Lake said slowly. His words were careful and self assured.

Arthur felt the tension break slightly. Lake sounded like he was telling the truth.

"How long has she been missing?" Lake asked.

Arthur didn't respond.

"How long? Did you get a ransom?" Lake asked again.  
"I left here after Lee called me about the bomb. When I was talking to you, someone called and said they had her. I left you, went home and found her gone. Signs of a violent struggle." Arthur said. His blood pressure was spiking again.

"How could I have called you if I was talking to you at the same time, man?" Lake asked.

"An accomplice." Arthur growled.  
"Alright. WHY would I take your girlfriend? I just met you today." Lake asked.  
"You tell me. You've been planning all this."

"Planning what? I work in counter terrorism. You're a glorified rent a cop at a museum. Why would I want to hurt her or you?" Lake laughed.

"Her father was senator, Lake. A lot of people were mad at him before he was killed." Arthur said sourly.

"Yes, killed by his own head of security. Think you should have caught on to that earlier? Isn't that what they train secret service to do? Or were you just having a bad day?" Lake asked.  
"What do you know about me?" Arthur demanded.  
"Everything." Lake told him. "After the bombing, I made sure I knew everything about you. I know you were on the protection detail for former first lady Winter. I know you were there the day those two maniacs broke into her house. I know that after she passed, you worked in private security and your last job was to guard Senator Richard's daughter… wait for it… Ariadne."

"Why did you kidnap her?" Arthur demanded.  
"How many times do I have to tell you, I didn't?" Lake said coldly. "If someone was pissed enough at senator Richards before he died to stalk his daughter and kill the old man, isn't it reasonable that someone is still mad? I mean a lot of people were screwed out of a lot of money."

"Is she still alive?" Arthur demanded.

"How would I know that?" Lake said.

The agent breathed out a long sigh when the Point Man pressed the barrel of his gun deeper into his rib cage.

"Look, I'm sorry this has happened to you. It seems I can't convince you I didn't do this. If she's really gone, I'm guessing you need help. If you want my help, that is. The kidnaper was most likely the bomber as you said. But if you're going to shoot me, go ahead. You'll spend the rest of your life in prison. You and I both know they will catch you and soon. And your lady will still die." the agent said.

Arthur felt his own stubbornness, his own unwillingness to give in, wanting to take control. If Lake was telling the truth, the Point Man would go to prison forever for shooting a federal agent. Ariadne would die a horrible death if he lost his cool just now.  
"Make the right call, man." Lake offered.

Arthur eased his gun away from Lake's ribs and the agent breathed a little easier.

"Good." Lake said.

"I didn't bomb the museum." Arthur said. He felt weak all of the sudden. As if all the strength he had ever had was leeched out of him and now he was a shell of a man. All he had was the truth and no way to prove anything.  
"If it makes you feel better, I never thought you were a suspect." Lake grumbled. "Security footage caught one of your guys, Wilson, putting that toy car behind a display at the front entrance. We can't find him now, so it's pretty good theory he's our guy."

"Wilson." Arthur repeated. "Wilson isn't smart enough to have done this. I know the guy, he has trouble keeping up with the plot of 'The Expendables'."

"You're not the first person to tell me that." Lake grumbled. "Can I have my gun back?"

"No." Arthur said. "You still have to prove to me that you didn't help Wilson take my girl."

"I don't know who took you girl, man." Lake said honestly. "But from the look of you, the risk you're taking now, I think you're telling the truth about the disaperance."

Arthur said nothing.  
"Give me back my gun and I won't call this shit in." Lake said.

"He said if I contacted the FBI, he would kill her. I think he'll do it to. I tried to reason with him. Tried to get him to talk to me." Arthur was rambling now.  
"He just might kill her." Lake said. "How did he get into the house? You said you and an alarm?" Lake asked.  
"The alarm was set, the front door locked. He would have had to have the codes. No one but Ariadne and I have the codes." Arthur said helplessly.

He handed Lake his gun back and the agent, true to his word, put it back in the holster and didn't arrest the Point Man.

"You said Wilson lacked the brain power to do any of this." Lake sighed. "Maybe he was paid to plant the toy car. Has he ever been in your house?"

"No, never." Arthur said quickly.

"Are you sure no one at the museum knew you two were a couple?"

"I told you, we were discreet." the Point Man said.

"Someone knew you were living together. Someone knew you were former secret service and how to gain access to your home." Lake said. "Do you have any enemies? Anyone who would want to do you harm?"

"I used to work for the U.S government." Arthur said darkly. "Where should I start?"

"zMaybe the unsub want's to hurt you and not her. He's just using her to get to you." Lake summarized.  
"Why didn't he just come after me?" Arthur almost barked.  
"If I knew you, knew your relationship with Miss Richards, it's how I would hurt you." Lake said. "Now all we have to figure out is, how did he know everything about you?"


	8. Chapter 8

8.

~_ 'Plumber came by last week, looked under the kitchen sink, did nothing and still charged me $150. He said he would come back on wednesday to fix the hot water.'_

_~ 'Finished moving the last of Ariadne's extra furniture into the two free bedrooms. Only took two weeks to clean out three large storage rooms.'_

_~ 'Updated the alarm systems. I want a dog, but I don't think Ariadne is a dog person._

_~ 'I wish we could sell this house right now, and move to an island somewhere. Some how I don't think Ariadne would go for it.'_

_~ 'Had ourselves a little scare yesterday. Ariadne took a home test and it came back negative. I must admit, I was a little disappointed. Is that bad?'_

_~ Got the final bill from the plumbers today. Over five grand and I still hear the pipes running at odd hours. The guy said it was nothing. Then, the asshole charged me another fifty bucks just to tell me it was nothing. I should have been a plumber. _

_~ All we do it watch home improvement shows. We both agree that redoing this house will test our relationship. _

_~ What if we just decided to stay here? I think her sister could live in the basement apartment and we could have the rest of the house. As soon as she's done with school, we won't be so worried about money. _

_~ I worry about Ariadne. All she seems to do is worry. She won't confide in me, but that's nothing new. _

_~ Ariadne is working on the restoration of a painting. She thinks she isn't working fast enough. _

Arthur leafed through his little notebook at the the trivial snip its from his daily life. Normally he recorded things two or even three times a day. These were just a few sentences, never to be looked at again.

It was a deeply rooted habit he had. Recording things. Too many times he had to rely on memory and taking notes helped him keep things strait.

He needed to write now. Needed to record that Ariadne went missing this early morning. The phone calls, the confrontation with Lake.

He raised his pen to the new sheet of paper.

~ _'The very worst thing. I was called away from home this morning to a reported bombing at the museum. Bomb turned out to be a sort of hoax. A means to divert me away from home. To lure me away from Ariadne for a few hours. _

_While being interview by the FBI, I received a phone call be a person unknown claiming they had Ariadne and to not alert the FBI. _

_I remained calm and returned home to find clear evidence of a struggle and no sign of Ariadne in the house. _

_The front door was locked and the alarm was re-set. I have no idea how the intruder gained ingress into our home. _

_I was called a second time but the assumer perpetrator. He said he would cut off her finger to prove she was alive. _

_I managed to discreetly contact Agent Lake whom I meet at museum only a few hours ago. We are going to look through the house and hopefully find out how Ariadne was taken._

Arthur paused and looked over what he had just written. He had soft petaled the truth of how he had contacted Agent Lake and the whole almost shooting him.

It didn't matter.

"What are you doing?" Lake asked.  
"Taking notes." Arthur said sadly. "It's been a busy day."

"So this is your house?" The agent nodded to the town house coming into view.

"Yes." Arthur said sadly.

"Fancy digs for a rent a cop and art restorer." Lake added.

"We're fixing it up. Going to sell it. Ariadne has an eye for interior decorating."

He felt a pang f sadness and scribbled in his notebook.

'_One of the last things I said to her was that I didn't like the wallpaper. I wish I had just lied and told her it was wonderful.' _

"Still, it must be expensive. The mortgage and the restoration." Lake said.

"It is, but she has money." Arthur said.

"**Had** being the correct word." Lake said.  
"What the hell are you getting at, Lake?" Arthur said darkly.

"I did credit reports on all employees at the museum. She seems to have sunk every last cent into a bank loan for this place, payments to a adult care center for a woman named Elizabeth Richards and another home improvement loan of fifty thousand dollars."

"That last loan is in both our names." Arthur corrected him. "It takes money to fix up an old house."

"Money that you two no longer have. So, why would anyone want to kidnap her? You aren't solvent enough for a ransom." Lake said.

"Vengeance." Arthur said.

"Can't be vengeance alone. If it were just about vengeance, he would have just killed her."

Arthur said nothing. He didn't like the way Lake so casually said someone could kill Ariadne.

"Forgot to ask." Lake said just as casually. "What the hell made you think I was involved?"

"Because he mentioned you by name." Arthur told him.

"That's a neat trick. I only moved here a month ago. I've been living in a motel room this whole time." Lake said.

"Drive around the block. We can park the car and walk through the ally ways. There's more cover. We can get in though the basement." Arthur said.

"Why not just go through the front door?" Lake asked.

"He very specifically said not to involve you. If he sees you coming, he will kill her." Arthur said coldly.

"Check. What makes you sure he didn't gain entry though the house through the basement?" Lake asked as he drove his own government issue car around the block.

"Alarms never went off." Arthur said calmly. I secure the entire house before I contacted you. No glass was broken, no doors forced. It was just like she…vanished." Arthur said bitterly.

"I read her profile. She was a victim of a deranged stalker before. Could our new guy have planted cameras in the house?" Lake asked.

He pulled into a shady lot a few houses away from the back of Arthur and Ariadne's town home. This area was unique in that it had back gardens to the towering town homes. They could walk almost unnoticed through the alley ways.

"There has been no new lamps, clocks or furniture in the house. No one comes or goes in the house without my being there."

"Alright." Lake said. "You know the drill here. We check for possible ingress into the house. Check for video equipment."

Arthur nodded and looked at the town house.

"Just stay calm. He'll call you again soon." Lake said. "I've installed an app on your phone that can track calls using nearby cell phone towers.  
"They have those?" Arthur asked looking at his smart phone.  
"They have apps for everything." Lake said.

~ The Point Man let himself and the FBI man back into the house. He noticed for the first time how stuffy the basement felt compared to the rest of their home. It was unfinished and remained another storage room for Ariadne's stuff.

"Sorry about the mess." Arthur hissed as the two men maneuvered around the carefully covered furniture. "The guest rooms are worse. Just warning you now."

~ It was quite again in the house when Arthur unlocked the basement door and they came into the living room. Even when he had been alone in the house, he never remembered it being this quite.

Both men casually looked for video surveillance equipment. It was hard to believe that kind of thing would have escaped the Point Man's notice. He just always _noticed _these things. It had annoyed Ariadne to no end the way he inspected the lamp she got at a flea market. The painting she had pulled out of storage. He was always suspicious of everything. It was why so much stuff was covered with packing sheets and kept in shut off rooms. Less to maintain.

How could anyone be spying on him and he not notice?

The Point Man checked lamps and light fixtures. He checked the ceilings for holes, but since the town house had no unfurnished attic, there wasn't much point. He looked behind paintings and felt under tables.

After two hours, Arthur had enough.

"There's nothing." he growled out loud. Breaking the silence.  
"Wow! Define covert ops again?" Lake said in a whisper. "Keep your voice down and keep looking!"

Arthur was about to shout at the agent again when his phone rang.

He saw the blocked number and felt his heart race.

He didn't wait for it to ring again before answering and put it on speaker phone.

"I want to speak to Ariadne." Arthur said without preamble.

He waved to Lake who mutely engaged his own smart phone.

"Right to the point." the voice modulator said. "Why did you leave the house?"

"I was looking for you." Arthur said bluntly. "Put Ariadne on the phone so I know she's alive."

"That's not the rules of the game." the voice said.  
"This isn't a game." Arthur growled. "You want me, come here and talk to me. I won't go anywhere. I told you, let's settle this between us."

The voice said nothing and Arthur felt he suddenly had leverage.

"What's this all about?" the Point Man asked.  
"You know what this is about, secret service." the voice said darkly.

"You keep calling me that." Arthur said. "You got some beef against the government? The unit I worked with? President Winter?"

"No." The voice said. "Just you."

There was a click and the voice was gone.

"He hung up." Arthur said to Lake.

Lake let out an annoyed grumble.

"Well, while you two were arguing over who's prettiest, I was tracking the ping from the cell phone towers. The good news is, it's close. Bad news is, it's within a three block radius." Lake said softly.  
"He would never leave her. He needs to keep her close." Arthur said in an equally lowered voice.  
"It would be risky to keep her in the neighborhood. This place is pretty populated with the school. Are there any empty buildings around here?"

"No. A lot of people have basements." Arthur offered.  
"We go knocking door to door, he'll know." Lake said. "Shit, his the floors always creaked so much?"

"What?" Arthur asked.  
"Are you walking or _clomping_?"

"It's the hardwood floors. I guess we don't notice it anymore." Arthur said feeling annoyed. Both men had been walking down the hallway, and Arthur had forgotten how noisy things were in this house. Sound seemed to carry; especially with no rugs or carpet.

"Hang on a second." Arthur said. He left Lake at one end and walked along the upstairs hallway again to his bedroom.

He _was_ loud. Even when he was trying to be quite he was loud. How many times had Ariadne complained about the noise? How many times could he tell when she was coming upstairs? When she was in the kitchen or bathroom. The old house creaked like a wooden ship when they were home. It was a noise they had gotten so used to, they blocked it out.

Even when Arthur was home alone, the house still creaked slightly. The house still creaked even when no one could be upstairs.

Today. Today the house didn't creak. It was silent and still. It only made noise now when they were upstairs.

The kidnapper didn't know where Arthur had gone. The kidnapper only knew when the Point Man came back.

'_He's in the walls._' Arthur thought irrationally.


	9. Chapter 9

9.

~ "How the hell can he be inside the house?" Lake hissed.

Arthur wasn't listening. It wasn't possible. No one could have been inside this house without he or Ariadne noticing. This wasn't some creepy horror movie where the killer was staying in the attic the whole time.

Lake seemed to sense his thoughts.  
"What about the attic?" the FBI man whispered.  
"We don't have one." Arthur told him in a hushed whisper. "It's exposed beams and cathedral ceilings in the master bedroom."

"Well, maybe in the master bedroom but not out here in the hallway." Lake said.

Arthur looked up and noticed, as though for the first time the lower ceiling of the main upstairs hallway.  
"I've never seen a door leading to the attic." Arthur whispered. "How could he get in here from the attic without a door?"

"Did you check the closet?" Lake whispered.

The Point Man nodded.

"What about the closets in the smaller bedrooms? Did you really look them over?" Lake asked.

Both Point Man and FBI Man drew their weapons.

~ The smaller guest rooms were so disused, Arthur had forgotten what they really looked like.

Almost at once, he knew there was something different about these rooms than the basement. Where the basement was musty from no human presence, the first guest room was much more airy.

Arthur raise his weapon at the sight of so much covered furniture.

Lake did the same as both men wandered around the ghost like figures.

Lake turned and shook his head.

No one was there.

Arthur silently opened the closet. It was too small by any standard. Another project to complete. But there was no hatch in the ceiling that pulled down for access to an attic.

'Other room.' Lake mouthed. Both men could feel the room was expectant and waiting for them.

The bathroom sat between the two bedrooms and had no access to the outside hall. The bedrooms were like their own island, isolated from the house.

The second room was full of boxes and Ariadne excess clothing. She had more clothes than Arthur thought possible. So much so, that she had to transform the other room into another closet for her off season wear. There were racks after racks of clothing in dress bags.

Arthur never realized how spooky this room was till now. All the dress racks. The windows covered up with newspaper to prevent anything from fading in the sun.

Lake looked in the closet this time and shook his head.

Arthur scanned the ceiling of the guest room. He wasn't sure why he had never noticed before, but the ceiling in the bedrooms was low as well. The roof outside was pitched and could hide an attic very well. He never once thought about a small attic over the guest bedrooms and hallway.

"Where is the door?" Arthur whispered to Lake.

"He couldn't have drug her up into an attic like this. He's not Quasimodo." Lake said. "He must have gotten her out another way."

"There _is_ no other way." Arthur spat. His voice never raising above a whisper.

Lake put his finger to his lips and shushed him. Arthur had an impulse to give Lake another kind of finger in response when a sound made both men freeze.

Running water.

He had heard that sound so many times before, but it sounded more muffled this time.

"The house next door." Lake offered and nodded to the bathroom.  
"We always hear them running the water." Arthur said distractedly. "But it sounded different."

"These are old homes. Sound can carry like you said."

"No, this was different. Before it always sounded like it was in the next room. Now, it's clearly in the next house." Arthur said.

Silently, Arthur put his gun away and stepped in to the bathroom.

It was a normal Jack and Jill bathroom. It hadn't been redone since the seventies and was ripe with retro wallpaper and yellow linoleum that was broken and peeling.

Everything would have to be thrown out. Sinks, toilet… bathtub.

Arthur looked at the bathtub. He _really _looked at it this time. It didn't match the rest of the bathroom. The tub and fiberglass backing looked relatively new. Even the calking around the faucet and drain was still white. As if it had never been used.

He hadn't given it much thought before. Perhaps it was some last second home improvement before putting it on the market. Perhaps the old one just broke.

Arthur didn't let a logical explanation divert him. He had let his guard down too often in this house. It was time to be suspicious again.

He turned the faucet to run a bath. No a drop of water came out. He tried to turn the knob again and it didn't even hiss with connection to a pipeline.

He looked around the housing that kept the tub in place and saw no calking. With careful fingers, he pulled at a corner. The fiberglass was light and pulled easily.

He heard Lake draw his weapon while the Point Man pulled the entire tub and it's back splash away from the wall.  
"What the hell?" Lake whispered.

Both men stooped over to see a perfect view of the bathroom in the next house. There were only a few pipes blocking the path, but it was easy enough for them both to step into their neighbors bathroom.

The two of them looked a little odd standing in a reproduction claw footed tub after just popping out of a hole in the wall.

"He's been able to get into our home this way." Arthur whispered.  
"I"m calling for back up." Lake said.

Arthur could barely hear his new friend just now. He was close, he was so close to finding Ariadne now. She had to be in this house. She had to be.

"I'm going to get my girl." the Point Man told Lake. He said it just as casually as if he were picking up Ariadne for a date. He stepped out of the tub and made for the door.

"Arthur, wait!" Lake whispered sharply. "We have to wait for back up. We don't know how many are here in the house!"

The agent grabbed Arthur's arm but the Point Man shook him off.

"Get off me." Arthur growled.

Lake didn't press the issue, and let Arthur leave him.

~ The bathroom was a perfect mirror of their guest bath. It's decor was much nicer however. Exactly what Ariadne had wanted for the house. Expensive wallpaper, expensive fixtures. It didn't look like the home of a kidnapper.

Arthur drew his weapon and opened the guest room door.

The mirror half of his own guest room at home greeted him. It was obviously used as an office by the owners. People looking less and less likely to kidnap anyone. The Point Man started to have a bad feeling about what happened to the original owners of this house. If the monster he was hunting was capable of taking Ariadne, what would he do to anyone who stood in his way?

The house felt deserted and empty. The wooden floors in the hallway didn't creek thanks to the long rugs tastefully put down to minimize the noise.

Arthur checked out the hallway and even the master bedroom in his unknown neighbors home. It was all quite and undisturbed. Like a museum. The beds were made and the air felt slightly stuffy. No one had really been living here for some time.

"On their way." Lake whispered as the FBI agent came out of the bedroom.  
"I don't hear anything." Arthur whispered back. "No one's been up here, not really, in a long time."

Lake checked the other guest room, the closets, and both men made their way to the downstairs.

"Arthur." Lake said. The FBI man's voice was cold

The Point Man turned and saw it then. Saw that he was too late.

The living room, again, a mirror opposite of his own home was bathed in cozy neutrals of beige, light blue, pale green and white. A professional decorator must have come in to make everything look so good. All the light, cherry colors must have made the house feel comfortable to the owners, wherever they were.

Yet, all Arthur saw was the fireplace. All he saw was the restored oak mantle piece and exposed brick backing. Bright red blood was dripping off the patina oak of the home's original mantle piece. A finger, haphazardly removed, but a human finger none the less sat there waiting to be found.

A pool of blood, tainting the white carpet in the same bright red was everywhere. She has still been alive when he cut off her finger.

Her heart was still pumping blood when he removed her finger and she bleed everywhere.

She had been so close. So close to him this whole time.

Arthur could only hear rushing sounds in his ears as police sirens were pulling onto the street outside.

Some inner voice inside him screaming:

_'__YOU'RE TOO LATE!' _


	10. Chapter 10

10.

~ "A few hours ago. Told me that his live in girlfriend had been kidnapped. It was then I found out she was Ariadne Richards who works at the museum." Lake was explaining to another FBI agent.

"The police swept the entire house; both houses really. There's no car in the back ally or out front. Whoever got away must have done so while you were upstairs. Taken the girl to another location." the other agent said.

Arthur sat in the kitchen of the mirror house. He felt numb as crime scene technicians walked around the mirror living room in paper booties and paper jump suits. They were careful not to contaminate the crime scene.

"Are we sure this is even her blood?" Lake was asking the other FBI agent.

"We did a quickie on the blood type. It came back at O negative, which corresponds to the blood donor card in the victim's wallet." the other agent said.

"What about the home owners? Where are they? I mean, couldn't it have been the home owners blood?" Lake asked hopefully.

The other agent, older, fatter and professionally uncaring, looked over his own notes.

"Doctors Lewis and Carroll Whitman." he said. Both of them are residents at a rehab facility in the city. It seems both of them are on vacation in Greece. Must have left the house empty till they got back. We're trying to contact them now." he said.

"No house sitter?" Arthur asked at last. His voice sounded strange to him. Like he had a mouth full of broken glass.

"Sorry?" the other agent asked.

Arthur turned to the other agent.  
"This is at least a million dollar home, agent. They really went to another country without hiring a house sitter? That's a little odd." Arthur told them.

"What's odd sir, is this whole situation. You need to explain to us why anyone would want to take a young woman out of her home in such an elaborate way." the other agent asked.  
"I don't know." Arthur said quickly. "I don't know who would do this."

"You must have enemies." the other agent said.

"What about from the first stalking?" Lake offered.  
"Eames was shot and killed. Dom Cobb is still in federal prison." Arthur said. "My testimony put him there."

"Is it possible Cobb might have sent someone to do this to you?" Lake asked. "A professional job? You said the guy sounded professional."

"No, this is vengeful." Arthur told them. "He cut off her finger and she was still alive when he did it. The blood hadn't dried yet, so he did it very recently. The chipping on the mantle piece suggests he used that as his cutting board. This isn't a paid job, agents."

"Alright. Who else hates you? Who else is capable of a crime like this?" the other agent asked.  
"I don't know. If I had any clue at all, I would tell you." Arthur said.

Right now Ariadne was hurt. She was bleeding and most likely close to death. All while he was sitting here looking for answers.

Lake's cell phone dinged and seemingly broke the spell of tension in the room. The FBI man pulled his smart phone from his pocket and frowned.

"They found Wilson. The security guard." he said.

"Great, we can find out who had him hide the toy car." Arthur stood. The bombing, the museum, all of that seemed very far away just now.

"No such luck." Lake sighed. "He was found near the storm drains, face down in rain water. He'd been shot three times point blank in the chest."

~ There was nothing left but to go with Lake to the Hoover building for more questioning. The FBI was involved now. The secret was out and blood red over the neighbors carpeting.

"Leavenworth confirms that Dom Cobb is still in their custody." Lake told the Point Man. "His calls and mail are all monitored after his assignation of Senator Richards.

Arthur nodded.

"It wouldn't be Cobb. Cobb never gets his hands this dirty. He likes to outsource everything he can." he said.  
"Well, then we are running out of time and suspects." Lake sighed. His government issue car merged into another lane. Traffic was bad this time of day, and the starting of an evening rain storm didn't help.

"What about from your days in the secret service? You said he kept calling you egret service." Lake asked. "Did you think someone would want to hurt you from those days?"

"Like I said, I guarded the first lady. It was her town home and there was just a light detail." Arthur told him. "Just me and Summers most days."

"Why only two?" Lake asked.  
"She was ill most of the time and didn't leave the house unless she could help it. We were her primary live in staff." Arthur said.  
"Summers… he was…" Lake seemed to be thinking.  
"Summers was killed during the home invasion." Arthur told him. "We heard the alarms go off, home was broken into by two radical separatists. They got as far as Mrs. Winters bedroom. Almost killed her."

The Point Man's voice was sharp and angry again. He didn't like to think about that night.

"Right. You shot the woman and then the man." Lake said.

"Summers was shot and killed to. It was why Cobb was so angry at me. He felt I was a coward and the bullet was meant for me." Arthur sighed.

Lake was silent for a long time.  
"Was it?" the FBI man asked.

Arthur turned to his new friend.  
"Was what?" he asked.  
Lake shrugged.  
"Was the bullet meant for you?" Lake asked.

"No one regrets Summer's death more than I do." Arthur said slowly. The man was a mentor to me. He had a wife and two boys in high school. I never wanted him to die. I saw the intruder pull out his weapon and I ducked. Summer's view was obstructed, he never saw it coming and didn't get down in time."

"Must have been difficult."

"You mean all the inquiries the funeral, having my service record redacted? Yes, that was hard." Arthur snapped.

"You did the right thing though. No one could have save Mrs. Winters if you were both dead. If you had it to do over, you'd do the same?" Lake said.  
"Not sure I would have." Arthur said quietly.

"So, no one swore revenge on you at the funeral? His widow didn't slap you in the face?" Lake asked.  
"Summers and his wife were estranged at the time. So were him and his sons. It's why he was on full duty. No one to go home to." the Point Man said. "They were sad, sure, but they knew this could happen." Arthur told him.

The Point Man froze as his cell phone buzzed in his hand.

"You still have the app ready?" Arthur asked Lake.

Lake nodded and with one hand on the wheel, activated his cell phone.

The Point Man waited a few heart beats for Lake to nod at him before answering.

The Robot voice, full of malice and rage spoke first.

"I thought I told you not to contact the FBI. Her blood is on your hands now, secret service." the voice preached.

"Is she even still alive? I need to talk to her." Arthur barked.

The Voice was silent.  
"She's dead." Arthur told the voice. "She's dead and I have nothing more to say to you now."

"She will be." the voice said.

"What did you do with the house sitter?" Arthur asked.

Silence.

"Did you kill the Whitman's house sitter before you started to remodel their bathroom? Very clever tactic by the way. All that running water and creaking in the house. I thought it was just bad plumbing. It was you wasn't it? Skulking around in the guest bathroom? Listening in, setting up shop. How long were you in the Whitman's house? Were you keeping her in the basement? I wouldn't have been able to hear her in the basement of the neighbors house. The CSI team is there now. Are they going to find the house sitter stuffed in a freezer somewhere?" Arthur demanded.

"Arthur?" Lake whispered.  
"I've asked you before to be a man and meet me face to face. Why are you involving a woman?" Arthur barked.

"Arthur." Lake hissed.  
"You think you're hurting me by taking her? I'm in debt up to my eyeballs because of her. I have a house we can't afford to fix up, in an economy that isn't buying fancy homes. Shit, you saw her clothing room. You should see her credit card bills. I was looking for a way out. If you want to hurt me, come and hurt me. I'll be at the Hoover building!" The Point Man turned off his phone and let out a long sigh.

"Arthur." Lake said.

The Point Man turned to his friend. Lake held up his smart phone. A map was on the screen with a large red pin in it.

"He was near a cell phone tower when he called. He's less than a block away from us right now. We got him." Lake said.


	11. Chapter 11

1.

~ "Where?" Arthur barked.

Lake ignored him and looked at his smart phone while he tried to maneuver through the traffic.

"Some kind of industrial district. I need to call it in." the agent said.

"No time. What's the street address?"

"Arthur, I have to follow procedure. I have to bring you in for questioning. We broke into a house and found a severed finger, your girlfriend is missing-"

"Lake, they're going to kill her!" Arthur almost shouted at him.

The Point Man snatched the cell phone from Lake, causing the agent to almost hit another car.

"Arthur! Wait!" Lake shouted as the Point Man abandoned the car and ran on foot back the way they had come.

He recognized the map as a disused factory that used to make televisions. Ironically it was close to their home and he remembered Ariadne saying it needed to be torn down.

_'__That place is a safe house for squatters. There's all kinds of strange things going on over there. Just last month they arrested some teenagers who had robbed a graveyard. Can you imagine?' _she had asked.

It had been a day, just like this when she spoke of the old factory. Rain and cold was in the air. Arthur had been too tired to really listen. He nodded absentmindedly as she talked about repurposing factories and something she had read about online.

"Wait up!" came a shout and Arthur turned to see Lake following him.  
"I thought you were going to follow procedure." Arthur said as the rain started to pelt down in sharp drops.

"Like you said, she may be dead if we wait much longer. That was a lot of blood. Can I have my phone so I can call for back up?" Lake asked.

The Point Man handed Lake back his weapon and the two men jogged quickly though the rain to the old television factory.

~ The factory looked like the perfect place for a rave or for people to hang out. Arthur saw the graffiti littering the hallways, the broken stair wells and even the guard sitting in the main hallway. He was skinny, filthy and stung out, but his purpose was clearly to sound the alarm.

"Cops! COPS!" the junkie shouted as soon as Arthur and Lake entered the building.

There was a rustle of dirty, ragged bodies moving under equally filthy blankets at the noise. On the whole, not many moved.

"She wouldn't have been taken by junkies." Lake whispered.

Arthur nodded.

The Point Man grabbed hold of the skinny junkie by the door. The man, his teeth yellow and his eyes glazed over.  
"We're not here for you. Where are they?" he growled. "Where are the _other_ ones who come here?"

The junkie whimpered and the Point Man squeezed his shoulder so hard, he could feel bone.

The Junkie cried out softly and tried to fold himself into a ball from the pain.  
"Where are the ones who come around here? The strangers?" Arthur demanded.

The junkie twitched and pointed up a concrete staircase. It had been smashed apart, but was still usable.

"They come here all the time now. Beat on us real bad!" The junkie cried. "They're upstairs, man."

Lake pulled Arthur away from the junkie. The Point Man feeling like his whole hand was contaminated after touching the waste of a human in the hallway.

"Let's go." Lake whispered.

~ Upstairs, was barren.

Windows were broken and there was decimated machinery all over the floor. Still, it was a nicer place than the main floor. Arthur could see why the junkies were angry about being kicked out of such prime real estate.

"Careful." Lake whispered as both men, weapons drawn, peered over out of date machines across a football field sized second floor.

"There are three more floors." Lake said when it was clear no one was there.

The Point Man noticed a face painted int he wall.

It was creepy, in a bad horror movie kind of way. The face was ghost like with chalky skin color and black, unfeeling eyes.  
Scribbled on the wall under the goulash face was:

**_'_****_The Wicker Man'_**

"Weird." Lake whispered at the sight of such odd street art.

"It looks new." Arthur whispered back.

"Looks like goth bullshit." Lake told him. "Keep looking and watch for fresh blood. She'd still be bleeding."

~ The third floor was a series of offices, all of them smashed apart and reeking of urine and other foulness.

"Arthur, I found blood." Lake said at last.

The Point Man rushed to the agent's side and saw a freight elevator.

"They must have used it to bring her in from the ground floor. Why we didn't see blood anywhere else in the building. Look it's hand cranked." Lake said pointing to the old roller that would allow the lift to work even during a power outage.

"They must be on the top floor." Arthur panted. He felt tired now.

"The stairs to the top floor are destroyed, this is the only way up." Lake said.

"They will hear us coming." Arthur said soberly.

"We'll have to be quick." Lake told him.

The Point Man looked over the decimated stairwell. There was no other means of ingress onto the top floor.

"Means this is the only way out." Lake offered. "They're trapped."

"They could kill her in the time it takes us to get there."  
"Back up will be here any second, Arthur. What do you think will happen then? Let's do this now." Lake said.

~ The lift was rusty and groaned with disuse and age. Even with both men pulling their roller up and around, it seemed to take forever to get the lift even level with the top floor.

Arthur crouched down and saw the well lit attic room of the factory.

There was no electricity in the old factory, but there were candles lighting the large room. Candles were burning over make shift tables and inside old TV's. The attic seemed even more ominous with the oncoming storm outside.

Arthur and Lake made their way through the attic, hiding behind steel beams. The Point Man saw instantly why the noise of their arrival had gone unnoticed.

The teenagers in the middle of the room were fighting.

"You said we would kill her! You said we would kill her hours ago!" one girl was shouting at a teenage boy. "You fucking coward!"

Arthur watched the teens grow more agitated and push each other.

"Yeah, none of this cutting off a finger shit!" a boy shouted. "Why did you even call the guy? He's got the FBI involved, man!"

"Shut up!" another boy was shouting.

"It wasn't apart of the plan! You should have killed her this morning instead of calling that guy." the girl said. Her voice was harsh and angry. "We should kill her now!"

Arthur removed his weapon form his holster, and decided it was time for the game to end.

"Don't move!" he shouted from his position behind a steel pillar.

The teens all turned in shock to see Arthur and Lake emerge from hiding.

They were an ugly, unlovable bunch. Their clothing was black and baggy. Their hair was likewise black. All three of them looked pale and bloated in the candle lights.

"Don't move! FBI!" Lake shouted. His own weapon was trained on the threesome now.

The teen boys complied with bewildered looks on their faces. Their hands rising up on to their heads. But the girl, a look of malicious evil in her eyes, scowled at Arthur, turned and ran.

"Don't move or I'll shoot!" Lake shouted.

But the girl was running away from them now and the Point Man saw a flash of a metal blade in her hand.

Before Arthur even knew what was happening, reacting on instinct alone, he shot her.

The girl, another unlovable goth creature, crumpled on the wooden floor of the attic. The gun shot hitting her leg and causing her to trip and fall with a heavy thud.

She was crying when Arthur reached her. Her thick, black mascara running wild down her cheek.

"Where is she?" Arthur said.

His voice was as savage as a wolf. He grabbed her by her dirty, greasy hair and pulled her head back.

The girl screamed and the Point Man could hear sirens in the distance.

"Ariadne Richards. You took her this morning. Where is she?" the Point Man spat.

The girl, like a wild animal being cornered, tried to swat her knife at the Point Man. Arthur was quick to stomp on her hand. Her screams were echoing through the attic as Lake was arresting the boys and reading them their rights.

"Tell me where she is and I won't cut off your own finger!" Arthur snarled.

He grabbed the girls free hand, twisted her entire arm back, and heard the pop of her shoulder being dislocated.

She screamed again at the sudden pain and finally started to sob.  
"In the other room. By the alter!" she cried.

"I got this one." Lake was saying from behind Arthur. "Go find the victim."

The FBI man was calmer than his friend right now.

The storm outside was raging and the wind was whipping the candles out.

The goth girl was crying and the boys were trying to explain themselves.

Lake was on the phone with another agent giving them his location and Arthur walked numbly to the far end of the attic.

'Go find the victim. Go find the victim.' was playing over and over in his head.

There, on the very back wall was a violently painted picture of the ghost face he had seen downstairs. The eyes looked evil and there were candles and incense all around the demonic face.

On a makeshift alter was laid a figure covered in a white sheet he recognized as being from the very bed he shared with Ariadne.

Her body was wrapped, cocoon like inside the bed sheet. Her face deathly pale and covered in blood.


	12. Chapter 12

12.

~ Things never moved fast enough when it really mattered. This has always been true.

When he had to make a life changing or saving decision, he only had seconds. He never had the time to wonder what if. He only had time to react. Sometimes, not even that much time.

It felt as though years were wasting away while the other agents and police secured the scene.

They seemed more worried for the girl Arthur shot than Ariadne. The boys were shouting over one another and the girl, being treated for her gun shot wound was screaming profanities and how she would make him pay.

Finally, the ambulance workers were pulled, like gravity, to Ariadne.

"She's cold." Arthur managed to say.

He felt so weak. Too much had happened today from start to end. He had lost so much in such a short amount of time. He gave his weapon to the agent in charge when asked without protest.

Lake was shouting for the paramedics and the wind from the storm outside was snuffing out the candles in the attic.

~ Arthur waited outside surgery for some kind of news. It was horrible, this not knowing. Ariadne had been so cold in that attic. Her face so pale and she hadn't responded to him when he tried to wake her up. The blood over their bed sheet was frightening.

"Water?" Lake asked.

The Point Man looked up to see his new friend, a word he could now call Lake, hand him a bottled water.

"Thanks." Arthur said. He didn't feel thirsty. He didn't feel anything.

"Any news?" Lake asked.

Arthur shook his head.

"Well, the boys are spilling the beans in the interview rooms. Agents can barely keep up." Lake said with a trace of happiness.

"Teenagers." was all Arthur would say.

"Yes. It seems they worship some spooky online character named Wicker Man. He's the main leader in an online community. People have little avatars and meet one another in service to the Wicker Man. It's a goth thing." Lake explained.

Arthur looked at the agent in confusion.

"They took her, Arthur. Those kids took Miss Richards today. They did it all." Lake told him honestly.

"Why?" Arthur croaked. He still didn't understand.  
"Ariadne Richards just happened to buy the house next door to one of the players. Bobby Whitman. His avatar name is Blood Raven. While his parents were away in Greece, he and his friends tore open the guest bathroom to get inside your place. It seems she looked like one of the victims of the Wicker Man game. His fifth actually."

"There were more?" Arthur asked.

Lake nodded.

"They killed Wilson, the security guard to." he sighed. "Bobby has a friend, Mark Wilkie, who programed the bomb to go off in the museum. Wilson wasn't meant to be a sacrifice, just a lose end."

"Sacrifice." Arthur said. He felt out of breath. As if all the air had left the room.

"Right now, the boys are confessing to the murders of four other missing persons. All of them looking similar to art work in this online game." Lake said.

Arthur stood and started pacing.

This was all a game? The monster just happened to live next door?

"This guy called me. He knew about me." Arthur protested.

"He knew all he needed to know about you because they gained access to your home. When they saw Ariadne, they decided she would be the fifth. Because Bobby Whitman lived next door, and saw when you weren't at home, he was able to cut out the guest bathroom and come inside. He claims the group found your old ID badges, your notebooks. Bobby Whitman decided to call you up, and torment you, Arthur. His parents are physiotherapists, he's probably been the subject of mind games his whole life." Lake explained.

"No, it has to be more than that." Arthur said quickly. A group of goth kids couldn't have done this.

"Arthur, we found some of your old notebooks at Bobby Whitman's house. In his bedroom. He's been studying you for months now. The rest of the group were planning to kill Ariadne today and he wouldn't let them. He wanted to keep you on the line because you were former Secret Service."

Arthur shook his head.

"How did he know about you, Lake? He mentioned you by name the second time he called me." the Point Man accused.  
Lake nodded.  
"The girl you shot, her name is Becky Miller. Screen name Isis Moon. She was on the scene at the time of the bombing. I spoke to her and everything. She made a witness statement. It's how they were able to know you were pulled from the house and would be gone a while. It gave the boys plenty of time to go in through the bathroom, take her and bring her back to the house next door. All of this, without ever tripping the motion detectors downstairs, the door alarms or anyone seeing them." Lake explained.

Arthur was shaking his head. He still couldn't believe it.

"There was no conspiracy here." Lake told him gently. "It was a random fucked up crime."

~ Ariadne's body was motionless in bed. Her flesh was pale and she seemed fitting to the rain storm outside.

Each breath looked painful to her as her chest rose and fell slightly. After Lake had told him about the kids and their online cult, the doctor came out and explained about Ariadne.

She had suffered a concussion, most likely during the attack, which had to be treated medically. It's possible she wasn't even conscious at the time her right ring finger was cut off her hand.

"She'll need to stay for a few days. We need to perform more tests. A head injury is very serious." he had said.

"Is she going to be alight?" Arthur asked.  
"It's too early to say. She hadn't really made sense when she briefly woke up earlier." the doctor said.

"Was there any sign of sexual assault?" Lake asked quickly.

Arthur felt his heart miss a beat.

"None. Although her finger nails are broken down very badly. She must have fought back." the doctor had said.

"Their were a lot of scratches on the boys." Lake added.

So now, Ariadne slept the sleep of the dead. Her head patched up from the blow the goth boys had given her.

It was raining heavily outside and Arthur wanted to go to sleep. He had been awake since one in the morning and it was almost midnight.

What would happen when she woke up? Would she want to just go home like nothing even happened? How could they live in a house where this had happened?

They would have to move. Somewhere where there was low crime rate or maybe even overseas.

Arthur wanted to bite his nails at the stress he was under. He pulled open his notebook instead.

_'__She's been found in a disused factory near our house. Teenagers involved with an online cult had taken her. The main suspect is a boy named Bobby Whitman. He lived next door to us this whole time. He went in through the guest bathroom and took her. _

_'__Thank God he found my old notebooks and decided to play games with me. They would have killed her right away if he hadn't. We never would have found her if he hadn't called me. _

_'__How can all of this just be a cruel game?' _

Ariadne moaned and the Point Man was quick to hide his little notebook. He never liked for people to see him writing.

She turned her head and saw him, but her eyes were still glazed over.

"Ariadne." Arthur said.

He moved closer to her bed as she raised her wounded hand to him.

"You're safe now. You're in a hospital and you're safe. I'm here." he whispered.

Her voice came out, groggy and drugged.

"I was hoping it was just a dream." she said.

She held up the heavily bandaged hand.

Arthur nodded. She was awake when they cut off her finger.

"Are you in pain?" he asked. "I can see if I can get you something."

She shook her head and managed a smile.

"I told him… that guy… I told him that you'd come for me. That he'd be sorry." she said. "I really talked you up. Made you seem like a bad ass."

She closed her eyes and grinned. Arthur couldn't help but smile back.

"Oh yeah? Better than your boyfriend from that stripper movie?" Arthur teased.  
"He's not a stripper anymore, and yes." she croaked. "Channing Tatum's got nothing on you."

"Good to know." Arthur whispered.

"I knew you'd come." she said. She was already drifting back to sleep again. "I told them you would come. I told them you would…"

She was asleep again.

Arthur felt a happiness stir inside him.

He kissed her forehead and whispered.

"Baby, I still hate that wallpaper."

**_~ One Year Later ~_**

~ Things moved quickly after lawyers were called in. Ariadne still had her's on retainer and the Whitman's were quick to sell out their son, their 2.2 million dollar home and pay Ariadne Richards almost half of that.

The goth kids were made a media spectacle. The Wicker Man helped to demonize all online gaming. In total, there were eight kids in the cult that had kidnaped and done murders in the name of this online boogie man. All of them taking pictures of their crimes. Most of them in Washington, but some from other states.

It was a quick and sensational trial. All the kids were tried as adults.

~ Even with a fresh infusion of money, it was hard to finish the house.

"You girls keep it down in there!" Lake shouted form the TV room. It was meant to be a ground floor wash room when the house was built, but Arthur insisted he needed an office. An office with no desk, just a pair of recliners, a mini fridge and a large flat screen.

They were having a monster movie marathon while Ariadne and Lake's brother 'Chaz' were making the finishing touches to the dinning room.

"Glad your brother's an interior designer." Arthur said as wolf man stalked some unsuspecting teens in a parked car.

"He's not licensed or anything but he loves it. Hopefully he can use this place in his portfolio. Whatever that means." Lake said.

"What did you think of the wallpaper in the dining room?" Arthur asked.  
"I'm glad Chaz talked her out of putting it up in the kitchen." Lake laughed.

"I hate to say, I mean, I _really_ hate to say it, but it looks nice in the dinning room. When she showed it to me, I didn't think it would work." Arthur admitted.

"Are we going to talk about decorating all day or are we going to watch wolf man kill these people?" Lake asked.

"Wolf man kill some people." the Point Man agreed.

They were quite for a while as they watched the blood lust. Ariadne and Chaz were talking loudly in the dinning room about wainscoting.

"It's perfect, dear. It breaks up all the vibrant color." Chaz was saying.  
"It's too dark. With the furniture… it looks too dark now." Ariadne said.  
"Nonsense. We'll put some fresh fruit in a bowl and hang up some bright, modern artwork. The wallpaper is amazing! It really pops right out at you!" Chaz sang.

The Point Man rolled his eyes.

"When is her sister going to come and live with you guys?" Lake asked.

"It took some convincing. But once she saw the finished basement and how nice it turned out, she agreed. I think it's going to work out well. Having someone else living here, but not in the house exactly." Arthur told him.

"You know Chaz is wanting to do the bedrooms upstairs next. You in for a few more months of my brother hanging around, talking about French wallpaper and vintage fixtures?" Lake asked.

"I love it. It means I don't have to talk about those things and have Ariadne get mad at me for having bad taste. I still can't believe she let me decorate the man cave here." Arthur told him.

"No one sees the man cave or how ugly it is. All that matters is the TV and Xbox. Wanna play call of duty later?"

"Sure." Arthur sighed.

~ "Chaz has this idea for the guest room I've been using as a closet." Ariadne said.

"Oh?" Arthur asked. Trying to sound interested.  
"He thinks, since we live alone here, that I should turn it into a really big closet with built ins. What do you think?" she asked.

They were getting ready for bed and Ariadne was settling down with her latest copy of some big art book on her lap.

Arthur paused.

"Think that will hurt the resale value of this place." he told her. "People want bedrooms."

"I know. But I don't really see us moving now that Elizabeth is coming." she said.  
"Maybe." Arthur agreed.

He looked down at her hands over the art book. Her missing finger was cleanly cut off, and with surgery, looked like she never even had a finger there at all.

She felt him look at her hand and covered it. A tactic she had adopted whenever she was around people and didn't want them to stare.

"After what happened, you still want to live here?" he asked for the hundredth time.

"I feel like if we leave, it means I'm scared. I'm not scared, Arthur. I'm angry, sure, but I'm not scared. Besides, the house is really nice now. It feels like home."

It does feel like home." he agreed.

He nodded at her book. A large monstrosity that cost over fifty dollars and came with color pictures and a built in bookmark.

"What's so special about this one?" he asked nodding at the pavement sized tome.

"Oh, it's by Thadora Langford." Ariadne said. "I'm meeting with her next week and want her to sign it for me. She's an art buff and the owner of the infamous 'Goose Girl'. It was a painting of a goose girl done by a fifteenth century painter. Not of any real significance until one day a man came into the gallery, tore it from the wall and slashed it five times before he was stopped. It was never able to be repaired. No one knows why he did it. It was one of those odd random crimes. I think it would make a good thesis. It's something no one had ever done before. Might even be a book in it. Mrs Langford and her husband have lead a very exciting life and collected a lot of art work. Each with a story behind it. She rarely gives interviews."

Arthur saw a light of happiness in Ariadne's eyes at the idea of a new and untapped subject for her PhD.

She didn't have to explain why she chose that topic. Random and senseless acts of violence were always on her mind. She could identify with the painting in a way. To be hurt by someone for no reason. For nothing she did or her father did. Just, random.

"Wow, so you think there's enough martial for a book?" he asked. "That's ambitious."

"Life is short. We both know that." she shrugged. I don't want to leave this world without accomplishing any real goals."

He nodded and settled himself in bed beside her.

"Well, open the book up and show me some of these paintings she has." Arthur ordered.

Ariadne smiles and tried to bat his hands away from the heavy paper at the front.

Ariadne gasped in horror to see her new book had been vandalized. On the first few pages, a small, rectangle hole had been carefully cut into the top of the pages. The cuts were precise and didn't mare the art work in anyway. Only they cradled a large, brilliant diamond ring there.

"Arthur." she whispered.

"I don't think we should turn the other guest room into a closet. I was hoping it might get used for other things." the Point Man said casually. "Who knows? We may a visitor someday who needs it."

"How long have you been planning this?" she asked. She was pretending to be mad, but her lips were curing into a smile.

"Long enough." he said simply.

"You destroyed my book being so romantic." she scolded him. Her new ring slipping easily on her finger.

"I'm sure Mrs. Langford will think it's a charming story." Arthur said.

"Yes, I can tell her that my new fiancé is a fool." Ariadne huffed.

"As long as I'm your fool." he smiled.


End file.
